Clock Stopping Creations

The Creative High of Midnight Hours

Over the past few years, I've done an overwhelming amount of my writing and creative work in the evenings and on occasion well into the night. I sometimes dream of writing in the mornings, of having that rare, clear-headed peace before the day gets filled with to-do’s. Most mornings, I tend to be focused on accomplishing what’s on the agenda for the day. Even when it's quiet, the morning feels structured. The evening feels more open.In the evenings, I have a solid few hours where no one needs me. The streets begin to quiet after rush hour, and every so often I hear a distant train roll past. The sound of the train reminds me that things are still moving, that I'm still moving. That I wasn't born to sit on this couch or rewatch a Netflix series I've already seen.There's also something about the darkness that allows creativity to unfold without judgment or agenda. When the sun sets, the day's obligations feel complete. What remains is optional. The same desk that hosts spreadsheets at 2PM becomes a studio at 10PM. The same fingers that peck away responding to emails become the fingers that gracefully play the keys on a piano.Evenings resonate with me because time melts away. I stop caring about what time it is. I only care about what's in front of me and getting it to the next level. Whether it's a section of a canvas, playing a new song just right, or pushing through a final paragraph of an essay, I often work past midnight just to see something through. It's a careful balance of riding the high of inspiration while wondering if I’ll be able to access that same creative flow tomorrow.I tend to create at night because that's when ideas flow most easily for me. It took me a few years to realize that I do my best creative thinking in the evenings, and more recently, I've started to embrace it. For a while, I kept wondering why I wasn’t waking up at 5AM to write or paint, imagining how nice that might be. While I’m still open to giving early mornings another shot, I’m embracing creating in the evenings.Sometimes, after sleeping in a bit to recover from a late night spent working, I’ll walk out into the living room, see a finished canvas, and remember exactly why it was worth staying up.Creativity is simply the act of listening closely to hear what you have to say to yourself. When you choose to do the creating is up to whenever you most easily have the desire to and mindset to create. At night, when most distractions of the day fall away, we get a rare chance to meet our thoughts without interruption. Tomorrow will surely arrive with its noise and its lists, but tonight is where ideas take shape, slowly and freely, one brush stroke or key stroke at a time.